My Library

I wanted out, was out, and intended to STAY out. Alas! My resolve to stay out was squashed by noon on Monday, 12 June 1972 -- and in eventual retrospect my life thereafter was almost completely knocked about by circumstances beyond my control until November, 1988, some sixteen years later. And the dimensions of these circumstances became awesome, indeed. As of the morning of 12 June 1972, I thought I’d done a rather good job of things, culminating with the magnetometer experiment. No one today will have any reality about how impressive was that particular experiment or of the shock waves it created far and wide, not only within parapsychology but within background scenarios of science itself. I thought I’d be applauded, which I was. I thought my decision to get back to my own life would be understood. It was not. I had mentioned my decision to bow out to three people: Schmeidler, Zelda Dear, and Janet Mitchell. And when Dr. Osis telephoned early on the morning of 12 June to ask when I’d come to the ASPR to continue work there, I explained to him I was now out of it all. "But," he said, "ju muss come back." "No." Almost immediately Janet telephoned. "What the fuck are you thinking of? Now is the chance to stick it in the faces of those curds that squashed the paper on the OOB work." She was angry. Zelda called. She was angry -- a mood quite unusual with her. Ruth Hagy Brod called. "You can’t step out NOW!" She was angry. Buell Mullen was so angry she had the telephone operator interrupt Ruth’s call saying there was an emergency. "You’re letting ALL OF US down."